Das RitterKreuz The Knight's Cross
by Larania Drake
Summary: The sequel to Lady Knight Saber, and a crossover. Darkfic. Kel is not who she used to be. She's broken, defeated, but not dead yet. In a world drastically unlike her own, she must piece herself together again, and find the spiritual strength to destroy he


Das Ritterkreuz

(The Knight's Cross)

  
  


Disclaimer: None of the series mentioned in this work of fanfiction belong to me at all, and I make no money either.

A/N: Another of my trippy crossovers. If you are curious, I like to take a more adult approach to the Tortall books- probably because I am a sincerely messed up person. If you ask "What the HELL was Larania smoking this time?", well- nothing, just feeling odd at the moment. This is the sequel to Lady Knight Saber, and after Kel has been through hell, literally. There won't be spoilers for the first fic other than the fact that Kel gets a Hardsuit. What happened to turn Kel into- 

Tee hee.

You'll just have to find out.

Needless to say, this Kel is not the same person from the end of Lady Knight. She will be OOC- but only because of what happened earlier to her. Keladry (see? I spelled it right this time) had been an idealist, and that has been ripped out of her. Brutally. She's trying to find herself again, which isn't going to be easy. However- I'm fairly sure some of you are going to be squicked by what you will read. So, you are warned. There will be a happy ending, believe it or not. But, its a long hard road getting there.

The series Weiss Kreuz is the current crossover- its German for White Cross- hence the fic's name. The American release is called Knight Hunters. For more info, go to www.anipike.com. 

  
  


Who am I?

I am I.

You are? How do I know that? 

The young looking woman woke up with a start, breathing heavily. Those dreams again. Those bizarre dreams. 

They could have been worse, part of her noted. Instead of someone asking her stupid questions, they could be of... then.

Don't remember that, that's bad.

Getting up, she walked over to the sink, and splashed her face with hot water. The quick scald brought her back to reality, if only for a bit. She shuddered at the feeling. In the dim light of the moon, she chuckled at her own reflection. Ancient green eyes, framed in silver hair looked back at her. What little soft brown that had been left before this life had been lost after... Great mother, don't remember that. How long had it been since she had been able to see herself in that mirror?

Turning around, she finger combed her hair, and it stubbornly fell back around her face. She picked up the lighter and package of cigarettes, and with practiced ease soon had glowing embers and smoke around her head.

"Neal would have a fit," she exhaled. She didn't really give a damn. Keladry of Mindelan didn't exist anymore. She had died... at the hands of the Nothing Man.

Scars drew a pale landscape on the belly of the woman who sat thinking as she absently took another drag on her cigarette. Over the boxer shorts she wore was a thread bare t-shirt, cropped and full of holes. Muscles developed from a lifetime of service to a crown that never existed in this universe, and from martial arts studies that had made her more lethal than a snake rippled as she puffed again. 

"You'd think, after all the shit I saw in war, that... you'd think," she kept muttering. Seeing Asuka shot... The love of her life, shot... That wasn't it. She knew it wasn't. Maybe it was living a double life. Maybe it was traveling from one universe to another. Maybe it was... that. By the black god, she was weak.

Everything had been stripped from her in these past years. Honor meant nothing. Justice meant nothing. What had been Keladry was nothing more than a living shell, with the face of a man that had been living lie upon lie. A slut- Kel would never have been a drunk, a slut or an assassin.

A voice rattled inside her, telling her that some meaning was left to her pretty ideals. It screamed at her with a tinny voice, like a squeaking mouse. One that was about to be stepped on... 

Power meant nothing. Love meant nothing. Nothing was all she had. There was an odd freedom that came from having from being nothing... it meant that there was nothing worth hurting.

Maybe she was the Nothing Woman now? 

All that was left was revenge. Which was the one thing she would have.

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Ran Fujimiya didn't fidget. 

He could have nervous energy he kept carefully contained. He could channel it into his never ending hatred from Taketori. He could be the serious, slightly crazy leader of four deadly assassins while trying to pay for his sister's medical bills...

He most certainly didn't fidget.

Which is why he was working off his excess non-fidgeting energy downstairs, going through a bare handed kata. He handled it with his usual mechanical precision, while his mind, contrary to his wishes, presented him with the cause of his… nervous energy.

Damn that Kudou, anyways. 

Never on time to work, never really working always going on dates never taking things seriously- DAMN him.

If Ran, also known as Aya after taking his sister's name, had been thinking more rationally, he would have realized that how Kudou acted was more of a coping mechanism than anything to actively piss him off- the fact that Kudou enjoyed pissing him off not withstanding. He couldn't understand how someone could be such a- a- playboy. They had work to do. Why go out every night, or every other night, and drink and pick up girls? 

Why did he have to drive Aya crazy like that?

Had been thinking more rationally, and knew more about people, Aya would have wondered why Kudou was getting to him at all. However- while Aya could be an excellent field leader and very intelligent, being rational and empathetic were two things he never really were. His rational mind had been crushed when he had seen his sister hit by Taketori's car, and his ability to understand people had been stifled by his obsession with revenge. This, however, did not stop him from obsessing over Yoji Kudou.

Sure, the man was handsome, with his blond hair and green eyes. Sure, he could lighten up the angst filled atmosphere with his totally irreverent attitude. Sure…

Surely, Ran thought, I don't feel anything more for him than irritation.

The man in question had just entered the Koneko- Aya could recognize his footfalls anywhere in the building. They rapidly headed up the stairs, and the realization that it was barely nine o'clock hit him. The older man was rarely back before three.

This was confusing... Without realizing he was doing it, he had padded up the stairs to the room that Yoji usually called his own. He blinked, noticing that the door was open, and paused. Normally, he wouldn't have considered intruding on Yoji's privacy. He knew his own reaction would have been to snarl at the intruder. Poking the door with a finger, he let it swing open, and the light from the hall crawled in and spread, showing the usual mess of the older man's room. The man though, was not there.

Aya quickly went through a mental list of where the other assassin could have gone. He'd obviously been heading up, so that left out the basement, store, and being outside of the building. Or- the roof. That made sense, it was quiet. He seemed to want to be alone, but for the first time his curiosity overrode Aya's better judgement.

It was a crisp, almost bitterly cold night. Rimes of frost had coated the rooftop, and he wondered what the hell had possessed Kudou.

"Why did you follow me?" asked a voice, and Aya nearly jumped, reaching for the sword he didn't have. Kudou was perched on the ledge, in a pose of deep thought, looking at Ran with no expression as he took yet another drag of his omnipresent cigarette.

This was one hell of a switch, in Aya's opinion. Instead of the playboy he was used too, there was a man dressed in his usual fighting clothing of a long blue coat and white stripes, his hair in a ponytail and the dark glasses he usually wore covering his eyes completely. Yoji didn't seem like himself... 

"I heard you come back early," Aya replied with his usual glacial manner, and slightly accusing. This was a facade, but it was something Aya could do well. Yoji didn't seem to care. In fact, instead of his usual devil may care attitude, the blond was... distant. Preoccupied.

"Ever wonder what it is like," he murmured," to be nothing?"

Aya blinked. Philosophy? From Yoji? Somewhere a guy with horns was wondering where all the white stuff was coming from and why it was piling up...

"I have other things to worry about besides your rambling," Ran muttered. This was unnerving. Yoji got onto his nerves for other reasons, but this was almost scary. Just not right.

"Okay."

Aya blinked again. 

Deciding he had enough of this oddness, the red head turned and walked inside. His mind whirled with more confusion, though you couldn't see it on his face.

Kritiker didn't tell its operatives much about the pasts of the other members. For most of them it was painful, and they each had demons that couldn't be eradicated by any means other than time. Even touching on the memory of his sister filled the icy red head's mind with flame. He took a deep breath and fought it down... again. Again.

~*~*~*~*~

  
  


The heavy storm door to the roof of the Koneko florist shop slammed shut, and Yoji Kudou shuddered softly, turning to look again at the sleeping city of Tokyo. Only creatures like himself were out in this cold. Creatures without hope, trying to find fleeting pleasures to numb the pain for a while. This was their hour.

He snorted with laughter for a moment- Aya must have freaked out with the thought of him thinking deeply. It had surprised himself as well. Nothing and nothing, returning to nothing... His mind chanted to itself in a sing-song voice. 

The wire flinging assassin reached up his sleeve for a tiny, advanced computer- one that had never been seen in this reality before. He started, as he had before, the complex and meaningless equations that calculated where and when a portal could open, sensing energy that was foreign to this universe...

In other words, tracing the presence of Blayce, the Nothing Man.

The cold made his fingers clumsy as he entered the latest information, the even colder light of the computer screen bathing the roof. For several moments nothing happened- until an innocuous beep broke the tense silence.

Kudou's eyes narrowed. "There you are, bastard."

~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Manx, secretary to Persia, the head of Kritiker, watched the storefront of Cat in the House flower shop with amusement. As almost always, hormonal teeny boppers in short skirted school uniforms pressed their faces against the front windows, ogling their favorite male. Aya as always, hated the attention and pretended they weren't there, Yoji flirted back outrageously, Omi was painfully polite and Ken tried to kill himself with his pots by accident. It would have been a hilarious scene, if she wasn't there on business. 

The elegantly dressed woman walked nonchalantly into the business, and absently made an order. The Weiss boys didn't pay her any more heed than they did anyone else, but they knew. There was a new mission ahead of them.

  
  


~*~*~*~*~

  
  


Omi choked as he looked at the newest of their missions. They had to eliminate a man named Brice, who had started a child prostitution ring... Not just that, he apparently used the children that were no longer 'pretty' in obscene medical experimentation. Around the room he saw people become ill. Except Yoji, who looked... enraged. Not just enraged, but insulted.

"So- I take it you are all in?" Manx said softly, knowing the Knight Hunters wouldn't dare turn this one down.

"Not me," Yoji interrupted. Everyone stared at him in shock.

"What the hell? Why? Just because no pretty girls are involved?" snarled Ken, getting to his feet.

"One of many, Ken, one of many," Yoji smiled coldly, and turned his back to leave. 

"Bastard!" Ken snarled, and got up, swinging his fist at the blond man's head. Yoji just leaned to the side, avoiding it. The former J-leager stopped as he looked at him. 

"Go ahead! Ignore it when people need your help! Some Hunter of the Knight you are!" Ken snarled and turned around, seeing that a fight would be useless. He pushed past Yoji, not seeing the pained expression on his face.

"You have no idea," the older man whispered. "You have no idea at all."

~*~*~*~*~

  
  


The mission was going to be a difficult one. 

The organization that Brice controlled was nearly impossible to break in to. It had advanced technology, which made the efforts of the entire espionage wing of Kritiker look puny. They had barely been able to discover what went on in that giant glass and steel building, let alone how to kill the man in charge. It had been an accident, in fact. The Crashers had been investigating a doctor making money in selling black market organs. They had traced the doctor's supplier and came across Brice- which had been the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Prostitution, pornography, medical experiments, technology that seemed to come from a science fiction movie- Brice was in on all of it. He gambled, he dabbled in drugs, and was making a name for himself in organized crime. Yet no one had been able to stop him.

Ran preferred the Yakuza to this asshole.

He was holding a lovely bouquet that he was delivering to president's office- and was promptly stopped by security, then by Brice's secretary. However, after being patted down for weapons and anything else incriminating, he was allowed on his way. His roaming eyes took in heavy security measures, cameras, lots of guards... and something that made his skin tingle. 

"A pretty thing," said a voice, seeing to come from nowhere, and Aya whipped around, his assassin's reflexes making him jumpy.

A tall, seemingly regal man was standing there, and Aya had to blink and shake his head a moment before focusing on the other man. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw a short, ratty looking person over the features of the suited one. There was something very, very wrong there. 

"Are those flowers for me? How pretty," the man murmured, and Aya handed the arrangement to him, his hands jerked back as soon as he was finished. This man was greasy- wait, he was impeccably groomed, but he just seemed greasy. 

"I assume you are President Brice?" Fujimiya said flatly, narrowing his eyes. 

The other man nodded, his eyes darting about, starting to pick at the buds, pick at his hair, pick at his suit... Aya didn't fidget, but this man couldn't hold still. Then those flickering eyes rested on him again.

"So... pretty," he whispered again, and Ran back up, and hit the wall. He didn't like being looked at like that. He felt dirtied.

"Well thank you for the delivery, I assume you want to be on your way?" 

Ran nodded, not looking at Brice, who was playing with a shiny ring. His eyes wanted to stick to that ring, but his body felt ill. He darted off, and out of the building, his mind absently taking in other security details, and finally finding some weaknesses. 

"Gods," he muttered, leaning up against a building, after breaking into a run to his car. Why had he felt like he had just escaped from something horrible? A nasty smile bent his lips as got into the vehicle and drove away. This was one person he would enjoy delivering justice to later. Hell, after meeting that slime ball, he might even do it for free. Maybe.

~*~*~*~*~

  
  


The woman who might have been Kel, once, looked at the gleaming motoslave and the velvet finish of her Hardsuit. 

"Its been a while, old friend," she whispered softly, a hand tracing the helmet's jaw. 

"We have work to do."

  
  


To be continued!

  
  


Another author's note: you might want to take acid, get drunk, or something before reading the rest of this story. You'll understand it better. Although I don't condone the use of any kind of drug. Really. But this story is going to be rather trippin'.


End file.
